The
sixty-foot catamaran, Plastiki, constructed from about 12,500 discarded
plastic bottles and equipped with sustainable solar panels, arrived in
Sydney, Australia on Monday, July 26 following a four-month voyage that
began in San Francisco, USA. Expedition leader and environmentalist
David de Rothschild, said the journey was motivated by a 2006 United
Nations report warning of the perils of plastic in the world’s seas as
it stated that every square mile of the oceans contained 46,000 pieces
of floating plastic debris.

Voyaging 8,000 nautical miles, Mr.
de Rothschild along with 5 other crew members endured storms and other
challenges on the journey. They also witnessed first-hand the North
Pacific gyre, a place where some 3.5 million tons of discarded plastic
has gathered in an enormous current and clustered together in a swirling
mass of waste the size of Texas, USA.

Saying that this debris
now represents a real threat to marine life, World Wildlife Fund Policy
Manager for Marine Species Lydia Gibson stated, “Plastic garbage, which
decomposes very slowly, is often mistaken for food by marine animals.

High
concentrations of plastic material, particularly plastic bags, have
been found blocking the breathing passages and stomachs of many marine
species, including whales, dolphins, seals, puffins and turtles. Plastic
six-pack rings for drink bottles and cans can also choke marine
animals.” As one example of the unimaginably horrific effects of this
marine waste, the stomach of a rare eight-meter Bryde's whale discovered
perished on an Australian beach was found to be jammed with almost six
square meters of plastic, including supermarket bags, food packaging,
three large sheets of plastic and fragments of garbage bags.

The
returned Plastiki will be on display for a month at the Australian
National Maritime Museum where the crew members will hold public
speaking events to raise awareness of the increasingly dire effects of
plastic waste in the ocean.

Mr. de Rothschild said, “The plan is
to create a global oceans exhibit that can showcase not only the issue
of throw-away plastics but really about nurturing and re-evaluating our
oceans... our most precious of ecosystems.”

Our admiring salute,
Mr. de Rothschild and crew on the success of your eco-adventure as we
also thank World Wildlife Fund for their caring efforts on behalf of
marine co-inhabitants.

May more and more people become aware and
motivated toward actions that consider all lives on our shared
planetary home. Supreme Master Ching Hai has often spoken of the
importance of our care for other beings in a larger picture of global
balance, as during a July 2008 videoconference in Formosa (Taiwan).

Supreme Master Ching Hai:
Indeed it’s a sad news as some companies or individuals are not
responsible because they do not perceive the impact of their actions and
the consequences on the environment if they are careless. So many
marine species have suffered, decreased, or completely been wiped out of
existence, due to such other’s and careless actions. Oil spills and all
that, garbage disposal and all that is harming the environment and
killing the wilds a lot.

So I suggest that stricter rules must
be imposed to protect the sea, the water, which is our life, which is
also our protector in terms of balancing our ecosystems and sustains our
planetary equilibrium, and sustains our lives.

We’ve been
warned from all sides. It is time that we take heed now and return to
our natural loving self. Manifest our love outwardly by protecting,
respecting all lives, in action. Meaning again: being a vegetarian,
abstain from all animals products.